


Life After Afterlife

by burglebezzlement



Category: The Good Place (TV)
Genre: Gen, Niednagels, Rich niednagel backstory, Sisters, Spoilers through Season 3, The Medium Place, post-season 3
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-18
Updated: 2019-06-18
Packaged: 2020-04-06 01:40:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 5,470
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19052677
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burglebezzlement/pseuds/burglebezzlement
Summary: Kamilah moves in with Tahani after niednagels infest her house in the new "Good Place."





	Life After Afterlife

**Author's Note:**

  * For [thinlizzy2](https://archiveofourown.org/users/thinlizzy2/gifts).



> Happy Fandom 5K! :D
> 
> The explanation given here for Clown Reboot is based on the one that Megan Amran mentioned in the Good Place podcast.

Tahani’s seen her sister accept more international awards than she can count. She’s seen her perform to arena-sized crowds as a musician, and put on art shows for the international art community, and compete in the Olympics.

But she’s never seen her sister like this.

Kamilah crouches in the corner of the room. Her hair is straggling and unbraided. She’s wearing one of her own tour shirts, crumpled and unclean.

“Kamliah?” Tahani steps forward cautiously. “What’s wrong?”

“They’re going to see you,” Kamilah whispers. “They can see all of us.”

Her eyes are wild, panicked. Tahani crouches down, her skirt spreading around her on the polished concrete floor. “Who can see us, darling?”

“They’re here.” Kamilah’s eyes go wide and she points behind Tahani. “There!”

Tahani turns, cautiously, and sees it: one of the enormous green slugs from the Bad Place, sitting in a corner, watching them. A niednagel.

And Kamilah says there’s more than one of them here.

Tahani stands, decisive, and pulls Kamilah up after her. “We’re getting you out of here,” she says. “Follow me.”

* * *

It’s been three weeks since Kamilah arrived in the Medium Place, between Chidi’s ex-girlfriend Simone and a Jacksonville police officer named Katie Ramirez who once arrested Jason for petty thievery. Jason’s monk disguise has been surprisingly effective, but they’ve still struggled with keeping John the gossip blogger and Simone the scientist and Katie the detective from figuring out why their afterlives make no sense. Michael and Eleanor have dire suspicions that this was the Bad Place’s real plan all along. Nothing in the agreement said the Bad Place couldn’t send detectives.

In all of the madness of establishing the neighborhood, Kamilah has been the easy one. She hasn’t asked questions. She has assumed, the way Tahani now knows she herself did 802 times, that she deserves her spot in the Good Place. Janet made several of the Janet babies into Kamilah fans, and Kamilah has spent the past few weeks holding intimate salons for them, performing for them, and otherwise lavishing them with attention as her fans. 

She hasn’t offered to spend time with Tahani.

Oh, they’ve spent time together. Kamilah showed up to the welcome party and performed, which felt so much like her pity-performances at Tahani’s benefit events that it made Tahani’s stomach churn. John’s been especially fanboyish about Kamilah, which makes Tahani secretly fantasize about doing something really dreadful to him, like asking Jason to throw a baby alligator at him, or offering to go shopping with him and recommending a shirt that looks terrible for his complexion.

Through it all, however, Tahani has reminded herself of their greater goal. Their purpose in the Medium Place is historic. Afterlife-altering. Surely she can learn to tolerate her sister and the obnoxious gossip blogger who fawns over her for a year. She loves her sister, somewhere deep down. She’s almost certain of it.

It’s why she suggested that they have matching houses, each alike in dignity at opposite ends of the glorious lawn that forms the center of the new Good Place. 

It’s why it hurt so much when Kamilah turned the house down.

Kamilah’s new house is small, not much larger than Eleanor’s doll-sized cottage, and built from concrete and glass. Tahani finds it rather like being in a parking garage in Dubai or a high-end crypt, but Kamilah seems to prefer it there. She spends most of her time there, even when Tahani’s hosting some neighborhood event.

Which doesn’t bother Tahani, of course. They’re here to become better people, not to spend their time eating delicious food and being entertained in a gracious setting. 

It doesn’t bother her at all.

* * *

They leave the niednagel behind, and Tahani brings Kamilah across the grassy lawn to her house. It’s early evening, the sun just set and the sky deep blue, spread with the first of the stars. Tahani’s never been anywhere on Earth that could get stars like Mindy’s Medium Place, glowing in the sky in a pathway of shining light each evening. She’s been idly planning an evening star gazing event for some time. Janet’s said that she can create comets and shooting stars.

Thoughts of the next party seem silly now. Kamilah stumbles, and Tahani puts an arm out to steady her as they walk up the steps of Tahani’s house.

Inside, she guides Kamilah to one of the guest baths. Kamilah is uncertain, looking into the corners of the room like she expects to find something there.

“I’ll get you clothing,” Tahani says, turning on the taps to fill the whirlpool bath and adding some of the custom bath oil Jo Malone created for her as a thank-you gift after Tahani inspired her to create Jo Loves. “You just get in there and relax, darling. You’re safe here. We’re going to get to the bottom of this.”

Kamilah ignores the whirlpool bath and looks at her, a tortured expression on her face. “You could see them?”

“Of course I could,” Tahani says, surprised. “Could other people not?”

“Nobody could,” Kamilah says, matter-of-factly. 

Tahani sits down on the bathside lounge. “Who did you ask?”

Kamilah rattles off the names of half-a-dozen Janet babies. “And Janet,” she says. “She was the first one I asked.”

“Not John?” Of the real humans in the Good Place, John is the one who seems to like her sister the most. The most likely to have been around for niednagel spotting.

A flash of something like Kamilah’s normal expression comes back. “I detest that man,” she says.

Tahani smiles. She might not agree with her sister’s taste in houses, but they have that much in common.

“You get into that bath,” Tahani says, instead of pressing the matter of the niednagels any further. Like any experienced hostess, Tahani has dealt with guests who’ve been pressed beyond their limits, whether that means over-imbibing the custom cocktails or having an unpleasant experience in the sensory deprivation chamber. The important thing is to get the guest warm and comfortable, and there’s nothing like a warm bath to do that.

Kamilah looks towards the tub like she’s seeing it for the first time. Tahani gives her a gentle push, and then retires gracefully to the lounge outside, leaving the doorway open a crack in case Kamilah needs her.

Back on Earth, Tahani kept spare toiletries, slippers, and dressing gowns for unexpected guests. In the Good Place, she’s become rather accustomed to relying on Janet, who can provide not just a warm dressing gown but a custom wardrobe at the merest hint of an unexpected guest.

“Janet?” Tahani calls, with a look towards the bathroom door.

Janet pops into existence with a bing. “Hello!”

“I’m afraid we’ve got rather a situation,” Tahani says. “First, I need clothing for my sister. Whatever she would want for a dressing gown and slippers and pajamas.”

Janet puts her hand up, a pile of clothing already on it. Tahani looks at it in surprise. The robe (she can hardly dignify it with the name of dressing gown) is full-length, but made from a strange, sheer, sparkly fabric, obviously meant to be photographed dramatically rather than to wrap and comfort. The pajamas are a tailored black jumpsuit, and the slippers are of black vinyl.

“I asked for a dressing gown,” Tahani says.

“An analysis of Kamilah’s Instagram posts suggests that these items would be the most consistent with her personal style.”

Tahani holds the robe out betwixt her thumb and forefinger. “Nobody wears this for comfort,” she says. “Please take them back and give me — give me something I would have worn, after a hard day, while relaxing at the spa.”

Janet nods, and the clothing is replaced with plush, piled cotton in a lovely shade of yellow and a pair of fuzzy slippers that still manage to suggest style. Tahani nods decisively, and then walks towards the bathroom.

She stops outside the door. She can’t hear Kamilah — she hasn’t turned the whirlpool bath on, but the water isn’t running either. 

“Kamilah?” Tahani knocks gingerly on the door, and then steps back when it suddenly swings open.

Kamilah’s eyes are wild, an incongruous contrast to the poised pop-art portrait Kamilah on her t-shirt. “Tahani.”

“I brought you clothing,” Tahani says, pressing the pile into Kamilah’s hands. “We can talk after your bath.”

Kamilah spots Janet and leans in, her voice low. “Are you sure you can trust her?”

“Janet?” Tahani clasps a hand to her bosom. “Of course we can trust Janet.”

Kamilah shakes her head and retreats into the bathroom, the door snapping shut behind her. Tahani stares at the door for a moment, and then walks back to Janet.

“I do apologize for my sister’s behavior,” she says, and then pauses for a moment. It’s so strange, hearing those words come out of her own mouth. Her parents used to apologize for their daughter Tahani’s behavior constantly, and Tahani hated it every time. “I’m afraid her house has a teensy case of niednagel infestation.”

“Niednagels?” 

As her friend, Tahani has learned to read the subtle signs, like the way Janet’s eyes go a fraction wider. The way her body stills. 

“There are no niednagels in the Medium Place,” Janet says.

“Perhaps the Bad Place sent them?”

“There are no niednagels in the Bad Place,” Janet says again, and then she blinks out. She appears again a fraction of a second later, looking much more relaxed. “It’s okay,” she says. “Kamilah’s house is free of niednagels.”

“Are you quite certain?” Tahani’s perplexed. She knows what a niednagel looks like. She could hardly fail to, after that dreadful meeting spent with one wrapped around her throat.

“I checked everything out, and it’s A-OK,” Janet says, giving a hand sign that she must have learned from Jason.

“I know I saw one,” Tahani says. “And Kamilah seems to have been through a dreadful experience.” She realizes that her brow is furrowed, and reminds herself to release her body’s tension with gratitude, the way the monks taught her. “Could the others have decided to bring niednagels in without telling me?”

Janet shakes her head. “Michael would never allow niednagels.”

“I know what I saw.” Tahani sets her shoulders. “Janet, we are returning to Kamilah’s tomb. I mean house.”

* * *

Kamilah’s house blazes in the night, every window unshaded, every light burning. The door stands open, although Tahani is certain they shut it behind themselves in their earlier flight.

“See?” Janet says, cheerfully. “Everything is just fine!”

Tahani enters the house carefully, looking at the floor. There’s nothing obvious in the studio, a glass-walled room at the back that contains easels and paints and sculpting tools. The kitchen, the bathroom, the living room — all empty. The quiet is broken only by the tap of Tahani’s heels on the polished concrete floor.

They’re outside the bedroom when a chill goes down Tahani’s spine. 

Every light in the bedroom is on. The overhead fixture. The retro-futuristic bedside sconces. The cheeky pop-art lightbulb-in-Lucite on the Saarinen side-table next to the Wassily chair. Nothing in the room is to Tahani’s taste, but there’s certainly nothing here that should alarm her.

Every light in the bedroom is on... so why is the far corner shrouded in shadows?

Tahani’s heart thumps as she steps into the room. At the threshold, the flooring shifts from the polished concrete to impossibly soft carpet. 

She crouches down, looking into the far corner. And there it is — pale, nearly invisible against the gray wall, but unmistakable. It looks up at her and squirms, and Tahani gasps and jumps back, a hand clasped to her mouth. She can’t look away.

“Janet,” she says, her voice faint.

“What are you looking at?” Janet asks, the faintest edge of worry in her voice. “There’s nothing there.”

* * *

Jason’s yurt is the closest to Kamilah’s house, so it’s Jason who gets dragged from his bed to see if it’s a human thing, seeing niednagels in the shadows. 

“It’s cool,” he says, as the three of them walk into Kamilah’s house. “Donkey Doug used to get me up to check if his hallucinations were real, like, all the time.”

Tahani keeps her mouth shut. They haven’t the time to unpack everything in that statement tonight. Maybe not ever.

“I appreciate it more than I can say,” she says, instead, leading Jason carefully into Kamilah’s house, Janet trailing behind them. She steps carefully, half-expecting to find herself stepping on the niednagel as they walk through the house. 

“Oh dip,” Jason says, when they find the niednagel still in its shadowy corner. “It’s just like the neck-slug you got at the pancake place!”

“You can see it?” Janet asks, the barest hint of panic in her voice.

“Yeah,” Jason says, stepping closer. He crouches down. “He’s kinda cute. He’s got that weird mustache-y thing. Do you think we could teach him to wear a bow tie?”

* * *

There’s talking and more talking, and Eleanor and Michael showing up, and Michael jumping away from the niednagel with a small scream. Janet swears to rid the neighborhood of niednagels, like the entire neighborhood has been infested, even though they’ve only seen the one. 

Tahani slips away to go check on Kamilah. She doesn’t want to leave her sister alone. Not now.

Kamilah is sitting on the fainting settee, brushing her hair, when Tahani gets back. “I know,” she says, as Tahani steps into the room. “Mother would not approve of using a hair brush on wet hair.”

“It’s not the sort of thing I’d be in any position to judge you for,” Tahani says. “And besides, it’s the Good Place. Janet can grow you new hair.”

“She can?” Kamilah looks down at the hair brush. “Now I’m tempted to cut it all off.” She puts the brush down and starts braiding.

“I used to envy you that,” Tahani says. “All that time you spent with Mother while she fixed your hair. She told me my hair was too coarse to be worth spending the time on.” 

“Don’t envy me for that,” Kamilah says. “She used to pull all the snarls out from the top.”

Tahani half-smiles. “I suppose we both got the worst of it.”

She sits and watches Kamilah braid her hair, her hands dextrous as they form the braids and then wrap them into a self-supporting style on top of her head. Tahani has no doubt that when the braids are let down, Kamilah’s hair will hang in perfect ringlets. 

“So you could see them,” Kamilah says, still braiding. “I thought I was going mad.” She takes a deep breath. “I thought perhaps they just told us we were in the Good Place. We don’t really know, do we?”

“Oh, darling.” Tahani wants so badly to tell her sister everything. “We’re not in the Bad Place.”

“How do you know?” Kamilah asks. “Perhaps they find it easier to torture people who don’t know they’re being tortured.”

“We’re not in the Bad Place,” Tahani says firmly. “And we’re together. Any Bad Place that put the two of us together would have made a terrible mistake.”

Kamilah doesn’t look convinced, but she doesn’t mock Tahani for her moment of base sentimentality, either. “What are they?” she asks, instead. 

“They’re called niednagels, but beyond that, I don’t know myself.” Tahani claps her hands together and stands. “A problem for tomorrow. You must be exhausted — let me show you to a guest suite.”

* * *

Eleanor’s pacing around Michael’s office, her hair standing up that way it sometimes does. She looks like she hasn’t slept since they started their reboot. Perhaps she hasn’t, Tahani thinks, and makes a mental note to check in on their “Architect” more often. 

Michael’s behind the desk, slumped in his chair, staring at a paperclip. Jason is beside Tahani on a settee, and Janet stands behind Michael. All the people they can count on, Tahani thinks, now that Chidi’s given his memory in service of the greater cause. She misses him.

“The niednagels must be from the Bad Place,” Eleanor says, scrubbing a hand through her hair. “It’s exactly the sort of dirty trick Shawn would play.”

Michael shakes his head. “Shawn would never involve niednagels,” he says. “There’s some things even he won’t stoop to.”

“What are niednagels?” Tahani asks.

“It’s not important,” Michael says. 

“They attacked my sister. It is frightfully important.”

Michael sighs heavily, the way he does whenever one of them asks for something from the pasts they can’t remember. “Does it really matter?”

“It matters, bud.” Eleanor pulls a chair out and sits down. “Talk.”

“Fine.” Michael looks at each of them. “Niednagels were created by a demon. Niednagel. He had ideas about improving the way humans were tortured in the afterlife.”

“Sounds like someone we know,” Eleanor says.

Michael waves a hand. “Nothing like me, although I’m flattered. Niednagel invented some of the classics, like the tyrannosaur squid and tarantula bears.”

“Tarantula bears?” Jason perks up. “My friend, Big Peanut, from Jacksonville? He was trying to breed those, only he couldn’t get the right kind of tarantulas.”

Everyone stares at Jason. “You mean he got the right kind of bears?” Eleanor asks. “No, don’t answer that. Michael?”

Michael’s looking down at a paperclip on his desk. “He invented the creature that would come to be called the niednagel,” he says. “He called it the Bad Memory Slug. Niednagel never was good with names, I remember when he invented the three-headed wolf-snake and called it —”

Eleanor glares.

“Fine.” Michael shakes his head. “I don’t remember how it came about — I was working as a junior architect at the time — but the niednagels started attacking demons instead of the humans they were supposed to be torturing. Shawn’s predecessor tried to have them exterminated, but even the Janets couldn’t kill them. The best they could do was exile them to the IHOP.”

“Bad Memory Slug,” Eleanor says thoughtfully.

“They retired Niednagel,” Michael says. “They retired Shawn’s predecessor, too. Shawn was promoted, and niednagels haven’t been mentioned since. Shawn would never use niednagels. He remembers what happened too well.”

“So they got here some other way,” Eleanor says, a determined expression on her face. “If Shawn could get rid of them, so can we.”

Janet turns to Tahani. “What happened to the niednagel around your neck?”

“I haven’t the foggiest,” Tahani says, surprised. “With all of the excitement of our grand experiment and traveling the Medium Place, I suppose I forgot.”

“And the rest of us forgot too,” Michael says. “Almost like that was what the niednagel wanted.”

“Niednagels have never shown that ability,” Janet says, but she doesn’t sound convinced.

“They haven’t been able to hide from Janets before, either,” Michael says. “We have to assume that the niednagel has been hiding, may have been creating baby niednagels, may have previously undisplayed abilities, and will resist our efforts at all turns.”

“Perfect.” Eleanor groans, and then gets back up. “Janet, you and your babies get to work on figuring out how you can see these jabrones and how we can capture them and get them back to the IHOP. Everyone else, we need a cover story for the humans.”

“We can use the play I used in Reboot 652,” Michael says. 

Eleanor tilts her head. “Gonna have to explain that for us, buddy.”

“I created clowns to walk around the neighborhood and amuse Eleanor, because she loved clowns so much. But then the clowns began to rebel. I convinced Eleanor that the rebelling clowns sensed that Eleanor didn’t actually like them. Eventually we ended up with all of the residents in lock-down while the clowns hunted them for sport.”

Eleanor’s expression is horrified. “What happened then?”

“You figured it out,” Michael says. “You always figured it out.”

Sometimes Tahani forgets that Michael used to torture them, and then he comes out with something like that.

“Lockdown for the humans.” Eleanor squishes her nose up. “Not ideal, but better than having someone else end up as niednagel chow. Let’s go.”

* * *

Kamilah’s still there when Tahani gets home. She’s eating fermented plums over heritage yoghurt and wearing leggings and a loose button-down shirt. 

“Tahani!” Kamilah looks up. “That Eleanor person came on all of the screens and said that there’s been a Category Eighteen Bad Place Wildlife Incursion. We all have to stay inside. I was worried about you — didn’t you hear the warnings?”

Tahani can’t think of a way to explain where she was, so she passes over the question to something more important. “The niednagel,” she says, dropping into a chair across from her sister. “Niednagels. Do you remember how many you saw?”

“It all blurs together.” Kamilah takes another bite of yoghurt. “I was terrified. It might have only been a few.”

_Only a few._ Tahani thinks of trying to track them all down and shivers. 

“What was it like?” Tahani asks. “Being around the niednagels.” She should remember, from the IHOP, but she can’t be certain what was niednagel-related and what was being in the IHOP. Her brain wasn’t made to process ten dimensions.

“The dreams were the worst part,” Kamilah says. “I kept remembering my life, but from the perspective of the people around me.” She pauses. “I was horrible to you, wasn’t I?”

“And I was horrid to you,” Tahani says.

Kamilah sets her spoon in her empty yoghurt-cup. “We were horrid to one another, I suppose. But I lived with being me; I hadn’t seen what it was like to be you.” She bites her lower lip. “I am sorry, Tahani.”

Tahani feels tears pricking at her eyes. Anything she could say would be trite and sentimental.

She supposes she should say it anyway. Instead, she gets up and hugs Kamilah. After a moment, Kamilah hugs her back.

“We’re stuck inside for the duration,” Tahani says, after pulling back. “And I suppose Janet needs your house. You’re welcome here, but I can ask Eleanor for an escort if you’d be more comfortable elsewhere.”

Kamilah shakes her head. “There’s no need to bother Eleanor. I’m fine here.”

They spend the morning watching old movies Tahani hasn’t seen in years. It’s strange seeing movies in which Tahani has befriended none of the actors — rather like watching movies from an alternate dimension.

“I shall call Janet for tea,” Tahani says, as they watch the credits roll on a film about a murderous lighthousekeeper and his bride. 

“Isn’t she dealing with the niednagels?” 

“Quite right,” Tahani says, stung with conscience. “Let us explore my kitchen.”

She had Janet lay in supplies for baking when they first arrived in the Medium Place, but she hasn’t done any yet. It’s so easy getting used to Janet, arriving with delicacies in hand. Tahani used to bake quite often, back on Earth, but she got out of the habit while at the monastery, and her HeirBnB kitchen in Australia had been mainly decorative in nature.

They spend the afternoon baking. Tahani remembers the Kouign-Amann Kamilah makes from their childhood — it is precisely the one Cook used to make to console them after their parents had done something particularly frightful.

“Cook never gave me the recipe,” Tahani says, after biting into one. “How did you ever find this?”

Kamilah smiles. A real smile, not the calculated Mona Lisa smile she used with the public during her life. “She always liked me better,” she says, and then looks guilty for a moment before Tahani laughs.

“At least the driver liked me better,” Tahani says. “Do you remember, he used to let me drive when we were only children.”

“Only around the back roads at the country estate.” Kamilah shakes her head. “I used to get so angry when you beat me to some milestone like driving.”

“I should have beaten you to more of them.” Tahani digs around and finds a platter in a cupboard, and starts arranging pastries on it. “I am two years older, after all.”

Kamilah brews a pot of tea, and they carry everything out to the orangery. The glass windows give a remarkable view of the sunset, flaming golds and pinks and oranges spread across the horizon. They keep talking, watching as the sun sets and the stars come out. Tahani’s surprised at how many parts of their shared history she hasn’t thought of in years. And somehow, Tahani forgets to be worried about the niednagels when the two of them are together.

* * *

“We’ve established a perimeter,” Janet says.

It’s a few days later, and they're gathered back in Eleanor and Michael's office. The humans have been kept inside. Tahani expected Kamilah to ask to move houses after the first night, but she still hasn’t.

Tahani leans forward. “Are you certain you can see the niednagels now?”

Janet blinks, and a pair of deeply unfashionable spectacles appear on her nose. “I can’t issue an upgrade to the basic Janet operating functions to patch the hole the niednagels are exploiting without rebooting all of us, myself included. But I did make these cool niednagel-spotting glasses. Stylish, right?”

Tahani thinks of offering to redesign the glasses, but restrains herself. Capturing the niednagel is more important.

“All my children have been provided with the niednagel glasses,” Janet says. “We’ve established a defensive perimeter and we’re making regular sweeps of all the human households. The good news is that three niednagels have been captured to be returned to the IHOP.”

Eleanor leans forward. “And that’s all of them? We can release the humans?”

“That’s the bad news,” Janet says. “Based on the initial reports and our analysis of the captured niednagels, we believe we have captured all of the niednagel offspring. But the original niednagel is still on the loose.”

“Is there any way for the niednagel to escape?” Eleanor asks. “Maybe he’s on his way to the Bad Place to much some demons.”

“The train can only be operated by Janets,” Janet says. “And it hasn’t moved. I would know.”

“Could there be a demon in the neighborhood?” Eleanor looks over at Michael. “Maybe Shawn snuck someone in, and the niednagel’s been feeding off of them.” She pauses. “Maybe we should be cheering the niednagel on.”

“There are no demons,” Janet says. “The Judge is keeping a close eye on the experiment, and I’ve been doing daily demon sweeps of the neighborhood since we got here.”

“I don’t understand it,” Michael says. “The niednagel should have been driven to feed by now.”

“We’ve kept round-the-clock surveillance on all humans in The Good Place,” Janet says. 

Tahani looks up. “Not all the humans.”

Eleanor’s expression is confused for a moment, and then it clears. “Mindy,” she groans. “We forgot about Mindy.”

Janet and Eleanor begin making plans for immediate niednagel extraction. “I wish we hadn’t put the new Good Place so far from the train,” Eleanor grumbles. “We’re going to be walking for hours.” 

“I want to come with you,” Tahani says, as they discuss who’s coming on the niednagel extraction. “And I think Kamilah will want to come, too.”

“Kamilah?” Eleanor tilts her head. “Your sister, Kamilah, who thinks this is the Good Place? Is this a good idea?”

“She needs this,” Tahani says. Kamilah hasn’t said much over the past few days about her niednagel experience, but Tahani can tell how deeply it cut. “She needs to see the final niednagel captured.”

“And if she talks to Mindy?” Eleanor asks. “How are we supposed to explain the Medium Place?”

“We don’t need to,” Tahani says. “Why shouldn’t there be a Medium Place walking-distance from the Good Place? None of these people have seen the train.” None of these people have been warped through an interdimensional door from a dive bar in Calgary to a Janet’s void. None of these people have any idea how — how absolutely _pants_ the afterlife is — and if Tahani has her way, Kamilah never will.

Eleanor looks at Michael and Janet.

“Don’t look at me,” Michael says. “I think it’s a terrible idea.”

* * *

There is no such thing as niednagel-proof armor, but Janet has fashioned them a crude approximation, made from discs of something that feels like it was cut from the tough but flexible plastic of an awards show gift bag. They have to walk to Mindy’s, and Tahani fears she’s glowing rather too much to refer to it as glowing. Perhaps she’s even sweaty.

Kamilah walks beside her, looking effortlessly chic as always. Once it would have infuriated Tahani, but now she’s seen enough of her sister’s fears and insecurities to see it for what it is: a front to keep her true self hidden.

They’ve left Michael and Jason back in “The Good Place,” to keep an eye on the rest of the humans. Several of the Janet babies have joined Janet, Eleanor, Kamilah, and Tahani, although Tahani notices that none of the Kamilah-fan Janet babies are in the group.

Mindy’s house looks just as it always does: a dull, middle-American home, fading away under an unforgiving sun. The sunflowers have grown tall in front.

Eleanor knocks on the door. 

Nobody answers. Eleanor turns to Janet. “Can you call Derek?”

Janet concentrates for a moment, and then shakes her head. “Mindy’s rebooted him again.”

“Well then.” Eleanor swings the door open and steps inside. “Yoo-hoo,” she calls. “Mindy? Neighbor?” 

The house is silent.

“We brought cocaine,” Eleanor shouts, but the silence doesn’t shift. 

“Okay,” Eleanor says. “Something is definitely wrong.”

Tahani motions for Kamilah to stay behind her as they enter Mindy’s living room, peachy-pink with faded turquoise accents, like someone created an inspirational Pinboard from 1980s fast-food restaurant interiors.

“Mindy?” Eleanor’s taking the lead, scanning for the niednagel as they advance.

They find Mindy in her bedroom, huddled on her bed, the niednagel wrapped around her throat. She doesn’t seem to know them. Kamilah, her face pale, joins Janet and the Janet babies in coaxing the niednagel off Mindy and into the containment chamber.

“Mindy?” Tahani sits down gingerly beside her on the bed and presses a soothing hand to her brow. “Oh, Mindy — we are here for you.”

Mindy opens one eye, bloodshot and unfocused.

“You’re safe now,” Eleanor says, and while it might not be apparent to others, Tahani can hear the sympathy in her voice. “We’re here for you.”

“Did you —” Mindy takes a breath, uneven and ragged. “Did you bring cocaine?”

Eleanor sighs with relief. “She’s going to be fine, everyone.”

* * *

The niednagels are sent back to the IHOP, and Eleanor announces that the neighborhood is safe again.

Tahani has her suspicions about the IHOP story. She saw Michael in conference with Janet before the train left, and she finds herself wondering if Michael may have instructed Janet to set the niednagels loose in the Bad Place instead. Perhaps it wouldn’t be a terrible thing, for the demons to see their actions from the perspective of those they torment.

Perhaps that was Niednagel the demon’s plan. 

Kamilah’s packing her things in the bedroom where she’s been staying, preparing to move back to her own home. 

“So there’s a Medium Place,” Kamilah says, as she folds another pair of wide-legged black trousers. “I wonder why I wasn’t sent there.”

“Perhaps it’s best not to think of that,” Tahani says. She hates having to tell her sister these half-truths, but she knows that it is more important to protect her.

“When I think about some of the others who’ve come here — did you know that Daphne was a pediatric surgeon, founded a major charity, and gave her kidney to a child refugee?” Kamilah looks away. “I wonder how I ended up here, sometimes.”

“You’re just where you belong,” Tahani says, and then decides to take a chance. “Would you like to stay on here? In my house, I mean? You’d be very welcome.”

Kamilah looks at her. “I think I’d rather go back to my house,” she says.

Tahani feels her heart falling and tries to keep the hurt from her expression. “Of course,” she says.

“It’s not about you,” Kamilah says, meeting Tahani’s eyes. “This house reminds me of our parents.”

Tahani looks around. She hadn’t realized, until that moment, how much her own taste looked like that of Waqas and Manisha Al-Jamil. So this was why Kamilah had refused the palatial matching mansion at the other end of the lawn. It had nothing to do with Tahani at all. She finds herself warmed by the realization.

“Would you like to come stay with me instead?” Kamilah offers. “I can ask Janet to throw on a spare bedroom and closet. And —” She sighs. “I must admit, I’m not looking forward to spending a night there alone.”

“Of course I’ll stay with you,” Tahani says. “It wouldn’t be the Good Place without you.”

And maybe someday, she thinks, they can arrive in the real Good Place together.


End file.
